The wind howled through the tall spires of the Royal Citadel, rattling the stained-glass windows of Eldoria’s palace like ghosts begging to be let in. The storm outside was the kind that whispered omens, and in the highest tower of the palace, the young king sat alone—his crown resting on the table beside him, as though even gold felt too heavy tonight.

King Augustin Edevane was only twenty-one, yet his eyes bore the weight of centuries. Shadows gathered beneath them like bruises earned not in war, but in duty. Five years ago, he’d knelt in the blood of his father, the late king, who had died by poison—an assassination that left the kingdom in fear and the boy-prince no choice but to wear a crown still slick with loss.

At sixteen, he'd learned how to sign death warrants with a steady hand. At seventeen, how to mourn and rule at the same time. Now, at twenty-one, Augustin was loved by his people—but he was feared by his enemies, a ruler both kind and terrifying.

He did not take joy in war, but he never lost one. And he never forgave betrayal.

And yet, tonight, none of that mattered. Not his reputation, not his legacy. Because his people—*his* people—were dying.

The sickness had come swiftly and cruelly. First in the east, then spreading through the towns like spilled ink on parchment. No one could name it. No priest’s prayer could lift it. No healer’s herb could slow it. The children were the worst—their tiny lungs wheezing until breath failed them.

Augustin had spent every waking hour in the palace’s war room, pouring over scrolls, reports, and maps with his ministers, searching for answers where there were none.

He stood by the window now, watching the storm. The rain was a thin veil over the courtyard where soldiers had begun stacking wood for pyres. The scent of sickness clung even to the stone walls of the palace. It followed him in his dreams, where the cries of mothers and the silence of the dead were louder than any battlefield.

“I cannot watch them burn,” he whispered, his voice breaking for no one but himself.

Behind him, a voice—aged and tired—spoke gently. “Your Majesty… there may be one path left. But it is one the crown has not walked for a hundred years.”

Augustin turned slowly. His steward, Lord Calder, stepped forward, holding a small leather-bound book. The cover was frayed, and the spine bore the mark of forbidden knowledge—a sun crossed by a crescent moon.

“A tale,” Calder said. “Of a witch who once lived in the Hollowmere. They say she could cure the plague of 1422 with but a single potion.”

Augustin frowned. “Fairy tales.”

“Perhaps,” Calder said. “But the dead care little for what is real and what is not.”

There was a long pause as Augustin took the book. His fingers brushed its leather, and he felt something strange—something cold and old, like the first breath of winter.

“They said she was cursed,” Calder added. “Fell into a slumber when the world no longer needed her… or feared her too much to let her live.”

Augustin turned toward the window again, toward the kingdom now cloaked in rain and smoke. He clenched the book tightly, jaw set with silent resolve.

“Then perhaps it is time the world remembered her name.”

The first thing she felt was the stillness.

No hum of city traffic. No keyboard clatter or fluorescent light buzz. No phone notifications chiming like persistent little ghosts.

Only… silence. Deep, pressing, ancient silence.

Then came the scent—earthy and strange. Like damp wood, wildflowers left too long in the dark, and something bitter she couldn’t name.

Rosie Evans opened her eyes, and the world she saw was not her own.

Above her, the ceiling was woven of wooden beams strung with dried herbs, bones, and bits of glass that caught the dim light like stars. She was lying on a bed of furs, rough and warm beneath her skin, and when she lifted her hand—

Her heart lurched.

It wasn’t her hand.

Slim, pale fingers. Blackened nails. A strange birthmark curling across the wrist like a vine. She sat up, sudden and dizzy, her breath catching in her throat.

“This is a dream,” she whispered, but even her voice sounded different—softer, slightly raspier, like a woman who’d spent lifetimes whispering to the wind.

But Rosie Evans was twenty-seven. She was a marketing intern at a miserable tech company in downtown Chicago. She had no time for dreams. No patience for fantasy.

And yet, this wasn’t the first time she had seen this place.

The wooden shelves stuffed with ancient tomes. The glass bottles with glowing potions. The enchanted mirror in the corner, its surface rippling like disturbed water.

She knew this room.

*She had read about it.*

Her body moved slowly to the mirror, guided by trembling instinct. When she looked into it, the face that stared back was not her own.

Dark hair that fell to her waist like ink. Violet eyes that didn’t belong to any human she’d ever known. Her face was older than hers—but ethereal, almost inhuman in its symmetry.

A memory sparked. Not a memory, really. A scene.

*A Kingdom’s Heart.*

A fantasy novel she once devoured in her sleepless nights, back when she could still feel wonder. It had been escapism. Just another cliché tale of a noble king and a holy saintess destined to save the world. But now…

“No,” she breathed. “No, this can’t be…”

Her knees gave out, and she collapsed against the wooden floor. The cold bit into her legs, but she didn’t feel it. Her chest was heaving, panic rising like floodwaters.

“I died,” she whispered. “Didn’t I? The office… the deadline… I fell asleep at my desk…”

And didn’t wake up.

Until now.

Until *this*.

Suddenly, a new fear clawed its way through the shock. Because if this was *that* world… then she was not the saintess from the book. The gentle, beloved heroine who healed the land with holy light and became the king’s bride.

She was someone else entirely.

She was *the witch*. The villain of the story. The one the Church hunted. The one burned in the square in the original ending.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” she whispered.

But the forest outside began to stir with life. Ravens gathered on the roof. The wind whispered her name—not *Rosie*, but *Anne*.

And somewhere, far from the woods, a young king had opened a forgotten book, and begun searching for her.

---

The forest loomed like a forgotten god—vast, tangled, and silent.

Hollowmere had not seen a king's banner in over a century. The old woods were cursed, they said. Creatures with too many eyes, whispers that stole your name, trees that remembered blood. But King Augustin rode at the head of twenty men, fear tucked away behind armor and duty.

His horse snorted as they crossed into the dark.

“We shouldn’t be here, Your Majesty,” muttered Commander Thorne, a seasoned knight whose scars told more stories than books ever could. “No one comes back from Hollowmere.”

“I don’t intend to die here,” Augustin replied calmly, eyes scanning the shadows. “I intend to find someone.”

The witch.

He hated the word, even as he chased it.

It sounded too much like an excuse for fear. Like a name given to a woman the world didn’t understand. But the legends were clear: there had once been a woman in these woods who held magic older than the crown itself. And if there was even a sliver of truth in those stories, he would find her.

He had no other choice.

---

Miles away, Anne Ravenshade stood barefoot outside her cottage, staring at the sky.

The stars were wrong.

She didn’t know why that mattered, only that it did. The stars had shifted. The air had changed. And though no one had come, *something* was coming.

The forest had grown nervous.

The animals moved differently. The wind carried news she didn’t understand. Her instincts—*Anne’s* instincts—warned of movement on the edges of her consciousness. Riders. Horses. Steel.

And a strange heat in her chest, like a flame rekindling after centuries of sleep.

Anne pressed her hand to her heart and winced.

She still thought of herself as Rosie. Still remembered Chicago, iced coffee, subway delays, and crying in bathroom stalls at work because she hadn’t eaten in two days. That life had ended in a flicker, and now here she was—in the body of a woman who hadn’t just been feared, but *hunted*.

In the novel, the witch appeared once. Briefly. To curse the Saintess. To tempt the King. She was never meant to survive.

But Rosie had read the book. She knew the world’s rules.

And she had already broken them.

---

The riders came at dawn.

Augustin’s party stopped at the edge of a twisted path, where moss hung from the branches like old lace. A place unmarked on any royal map.

“I feel… watched,” one of the soldiers muttered.

Augustin dismounted, drawing his cloak tighter. Something in the air buzzed with power, a sensation like lightning before a storm.

And then he saw it.

A house hidden in the trees, half-swallowed by nature, but alive with something ancient. Vines clung to it lovingly. Smoke curled from its chimney in a lazy, defiant spiral. This was no ruin.

Someone lived here.

He stepped forward.

But as his boot touched the path, the wind screamed.

In the heart of the woods, Anne gasped and dropped the vial she’d been holding—its contents shattering on the floor in a hiss of blue smoke. Her hands trembled, eyes wide with sudden knowing.

The King had arrived.

And fate had rewritten the first chapter.

...